Utility Android Apps You Didn’t Know You Needed

Smartphones can be regarded as the best utility gadgets of all time with amazing time and effort saving features. All of these features are enabled by smartphone apps that are the renditions of some brilliant ideas. While we are used to the standard apps for texting, calling, and camera, there’s a lot more to explore in this wide world of smartphone apps. In this article, I have listed a few utility android apps that you might not know you needed so badly in your life. See for yourself!

F-droid is a repository of apps. In layman language, F-droid is like an alternative app store for your Android smartphone but not a shady one that gets you paid apps free.

F- Droid App

F-droid has Open Source apps. The fact greatly reduces the possibility of you getting malware in these apps. There are some good apps available on f-droid like NewPipe, a youtube client to play videos while the screen is locked, especially useful while listening to audiobooks or podcasts etc. Or if you are rooted then Ad Away which blocks ads throughout your device.

We all know the pain of taking multiple screenshots when we need to share a long chat conversation? This is where this app comes into play. It “stitches” all your screenshots together, and makes a long continuous break-free screenshot that is easy to read in one go.

Stitch and Share / Play Store

You can do it manually by selecting screenshots or it can automatically do it for you where you just have to scroll through the conversation. You can use it for the browser as well, to capture super long articles or those Top 20 lists. A great utility app, hence a must-have!

You probably have heard about this app, but I find it needful to mention it once in this list. It will help you earn Google Play Store credits by participating in App surveys.

Google Opinion Rewards / Play Store

Simple as that. For people who want to enjoy the luxury of downloading paid apps without spending anything can route in this clean and safe option.
Pro-Tip: Be honest while answering your surveys to get more surveys.

This is by far one of the best utility android apps for exploring files, by personal experience, but unfortunately, it’s not on Google Play Store. You have to download it from XDA. It is a trusted website for Android apps and is a nice community for Android developers.

Mixplorer App

This app is full of features that a good file explorer should have like, cut, copy and paste etc.
Furthermore, it comes with some not-so-common file explorer features like cloud storage sync, USB OTG support, FTP server, and the file hide/unhide option to name a few.

Muzei is a live wallpaper app that you would want to have. It has a lot of plugins on play store that can fetch images from configurable online repositories.

Muzei App

My favorite feature is that it blurs the wallpaper in a short while and you can double tap anywhere on the screen to unblur it. Blurring the wallpaper improves readability and visibility of the home screen content. Most of all, it looks freaking cool. Go, try it now!

This is the fairy-tale app that you’ve been dreaming of. App Sales, just like its name, notifies you about the paid apps going on sale on the Play Store.

App Sales / Play Store

You can keep a track of these on-sale apps or you might just find an app that went free for short period of time. I needn’t mention the rest. It really comes in handy when there are some good apps on sale that you don’t want to miss out on.

This app is for playing videos in a popup window. It’s very helpful when you want to multitask.

Awesome Popup Video / Play Store

Mostly, I use it to play YouTube videos in a popup window. It’s super handy when you are chatting with someone and they send you a youtube link; you can watch the video without leaving the chat screen. Alternatively, when you are hooked on your favorite YouTube video, this app is just the thing you need to reply to emails, post tweets etc all along the way.

These were some of the apps that I find really useful. Contribute your thoughts to help me find more such apps, you might get to feature in the upcoming versions of this topic! Comment below to leave suggestions.

I am a Computer Science student who actually loves what he does. Coding, gaming and messing around with gadgets are a few things that briefly sum me up. I found out that I could write as well and to write about the technology that's changing everything around us has become my new passion to pursue. I am nothing extraordinary or out of the blue but I still like to learn, which I deem as one of my greatest strengths. Join me on my ride.